Every year, over 200,000 playground injuries result in emergency room visits and over 79% of those injuries are from falls. To protect children from fall injuries, playgrounds are required to install a safety surface.
The safest playground surface is a loose fill material such as shredded rubber, sand or wood fiber. Not only is such loose fill material the safest surfacing option, but it is also the most cost effective. While such loose fill material provides a relatively safe surface, such loose fill typically provides relatively poor wheelchair accessibility.
The American Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that all public playgrounds and beaches be accessible to disabled people. ADA standards require a unitary safety surface such as rubber tiles or poured-in-place rubber. These surfaces are relatively hard and do not provide much cushion to protect children from falls. These surfaces rate high on accessibility but low on safety.
New ADA standards may one day eliminate the use of loose fill materials on playgrounds because of the low accessibility. However, such new ADA standards may make playgrounds unsafe and cause more injuries. In addition, elimination of the use of loose fill materials may force playground owners to install costly unitary surfaces. In certain instances, the cost of a unitary surface may well exceed the cost of associated play equipment.